A year-end trip to town is very revealing.Wednesday, 12-29-99 This afternoon I had to visit the local Wal-Mart and, despite media reports that all is normal, I can see panic buying Panic Buying High volume buying brought about by sharp price increases. Notes: The main problem with panic buying is that investors are not evaluating fundamentals. Instead, they are blindly buying before prices rise even more. all around me. One couple is over in the paper goods aisle filling a shopping cart with all the tissue, toilet paper, paper towels and anything else that they can get their hands on. I see an elderly man arguing with a store clerk and as I get near he draws me into their conversation with "If you want some of this on sale toilet paper it isn't on the shelf. It is way up there where we can't get to it and we have to wait until this guy (clerk) gets it down for us." It just happens to be our usual brand that is on sale so I say, "Sure." Well, that elderly man was buying an entire case of the stuff "just in case" and had to wait for the clerk to go get a ladder to get one down for him. The shelf was bare. Y2K See Y2K problem and Y2K compliant. Y2K - Year 2000 at Wal-Mart. As I strolled through the bottled water aisle, also bare, I noted the price had gone from their usual 49 cents per gallon to 66 cents. There was none left. Price gouging Noun 1. price gouging - pricing above the market price when no alternative retailer is available pricing - the evaluation of something in terms of its price at its best. People were frantic in their buying, snapping up some of the weirdest things that they think they can't do without. Some loaded up on videos and popcorn in tubs. I made my few purchases, then left and headed for work. Thursday, 12-30-99 Today finds us in the Berkshire Mountains. Our job is finished so we decide to shop the after-Christmas sale bargains and save if we can on some necessities. We are finding the same problems here with people clearing the shelves of things they just can't do without. The newspaper advises people to stock up as they would for a blizzard blizzard, winter storm characterized by high winds, low temperatures, and driving snow; according to the official definition given in 1958 by the U.S. Weather Bureau, the winds must exceed 35 mi (56 km) per hr and the temperature 20°F; (−7°C;) or lower. or hurricane (about a week's worth), and they certainly are. We can't get into a grocery store as it is packed. We go into the department store next door and find sweatshirts, socks and odds and ends, all on sale. We buy a few items. Next stop is a gas station/convenience store which reveals another greedy greed·y adj. greed·i·er, greed·i·est 1. Excessively desirous of acquiring or possessing, especially wishing to possess more than what one needs or deserves. 2. scheme to get our hard-earned cash. They've posted this big Y2K "gotta got·ta Informal Contraction of got to: I gotta go home. have it" checklist sign then doubled the price on many of the recommended items listed on this sign! We buy a few things not listed, then leave. We already have enough candles, lighters, propane propane, CH3CH2CH3, colorless, gaseous alkane. It is readily liquefied by compression and cooling. It melts at −189.9°C; and boils at −42.2°C;. , Norm's cigarettes plus our own well water so we really don't need too much right now. Sorry guys! Friday, 12-31-99 This is the last day of the century. It is also our grocery shopping day. If we hadn't had such a heavy work load, we'd have gone sooner. Today's newspaper states that we'd better be ready for the "Mother of all blizzards." Oh boy! I wonder what we'll find at the store when we get there, Y2K rioting? Norm is totally unconcerned about Y2K so he decides to go to work first, then shop later. So off we go to the post office, where we sorted, then delivered mail for six hours until 3 P.M. (The mail was very light today, so we were able to get done quite early.) From there we went directly to the shopping center shopping center, a concentration of retail, service, and entertainment enterprises designed to serve the surrounding region. The modern shopping center differs from its antecedents—bazaars and marketplaces—in that the shops are usually amalgamated into ; the lot was full so I went inside while Norm found a parking space. I bought most of the usual items adding two gallons of spring water and a few extra canned goods, mostly what was on sale. Tuna was 50 cents a can and you can do a lot with tuna without having to cook it. I bought extra. I was amazed a·maze v. a·mazed, a·maz·ing, a·maz·es v.tr. 1. To affect with great wonder; astonish. See Synonyms at surprise. 2. Obsolete To bewilder; perplex. v.intr. at the people pushing along these towering shopping carts, who were grabbing at this and that. Did they just now hear about Y2K? I'm sure happy we bought extra each week and have a lot put aside for winter use. In New England New England, name applied to the region comprising six states of the NE United States—Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The region is thought to have been so named by Capt. , like other cold winter areas, you have to be careful to have enough on hand to tide your family over during those snow or ice storms which we get most winters. Hurricanes are a problem here as well. From the grocery store we were supposed to go to the feed store but Norm decided not to; he didn't want to go the laundromat, either. We do have enough grain to feed our 60 rabbits, 14 geese geese domestic geese which were derived from the wild goose Anser anser. There are many other species in this genus and in the other genus of geese, the Branta spp. of which Branta canadensis is typical. , 50-plus ducks, chickens, cats and four dogs for several days, but I'd rather we had extra grain. Norm simply does not believe in this Y2K bug Y2K bug or Year 2000 bug or millennium bug Potential problem in computers and computer networks at the beginning of the year 2000. Until the 1990s, most computer programs used only the last two digits to designate the year, the first two digits being and I hope that he is right. As it is a very special New Year's Eve, we decide to splurge on a restaurant meal and head for "Olympic" in Willimantic where you get plenty of food for your hard-earned buck. From there we stop at the gas station to fill the van. Our jobs involve driving and I'm very worried about being able to get gasoline gasoline or petrol, light, volatile mixture of hydrocarbons for use in the internal-combustion engine and as an organic solvent, obtained primarily by fractional distillation and "cracking" of petroleum, but also obtained from natural gas, by . Now that the van and truck (which we filled earlier) have full tanks, we head home to settle in all our animals for the night. I'm still very worried that the feed store may be sold out or closed, so we plan to go there as soon as it is due to open on Sunday morning Sunday Morning may refer to:
We go to bed early since we have to get up at 3 A.M., and unless something wakes us up we won't see the New Year come in. Norm says no matter what the date says, it will be just another day to the animals; they don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. about the new year or any other day for that matter. Norm also says some people will wake up very rich because of Y2K and so much panic buying. We do not watch television, so we aren't exposed to many of the ideas and rumors we've heard. I sure hope if things crash we made the right choices. Saturday, 1-1-00 I wake up and the first thing I do is check the alarm clock, which is battery run. (We also have a backup wind-up model.) Both say it is 12:45 A.M., and the kitchen light is still on. I wake Norm and wish him a Happy New Year, but he only grunts in answer. The alarm goes off at 3 A.M. We get up, take out the dogs and head out to work. Everything looks just as it did last night. The lights are on, traffic is moving. Our papers are an hour late and there's a rollover A graphic element in an application or on a Web page that changes its color or shape when the pointer is moved (rolled) over it. See JavaScript rollover. See also n-key rollover. accident, but that happens sometimes. Norm jokes that it just seems to be normal -- and somewhere in another country Y2K has set off a countdown on a guided missle ... We did learn an awful lot from all of this. I have become much more aware of preparing for the unexpected, how to stock up without spending a lot of money, to watch for sales and use coupons at the grocery store with an eye on the future. My garden contained more root crops than it used to, with more than enough to give away. We have lots of extras and rotate our storage to keep everything fresh and ready in case we do have an emergency such as a job loss, illness or even the transmission going in our van. We would be okay for more than a month. Thank you for all that you've taught us, and may COUNTRYSIDE continue to teach us for many years to come. SUSAN MORAN PO BOX 281 CHAPLIN, CT 06235 |
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